Rediscovering Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869): Part 2 of 4 Parts.

Rediscovering Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869): Part 2 of 4 Parts.

At the National Archives, Washington, D.C., we read: (1)-"Veterans Records of the War of 1812" documenting GP's 14 days as a soldier; (2)-"Admirals and Commodores' Letters;" (3)-"Dispatches from United States Ministers, Great Britain";" and (4)-"Log of USS Plymouth, documenting in part GP's unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral (from his Nov. 4, 1869, death in London, to his final burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870, with much attendant press coverage.

In NYC's Pierpont Morgan Library we read the papers of J.S. Morgan, his son J.P. Morgan, Sr., and grandson J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943). These helped explain how GP, the founding root of the banking house of Morgan, along with a handful of other merchant-bankers, early learned to marshal foreign capital to help finance U.S. internal improvements and subsequent U.S. industrial growth.

In Mass. we read the bulk of GP's personal papers and business records (then not indexed or calendared) in what is now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. We also read his papers in depositories in Peabody, Salem, Danvers, and Boston, Mass.; at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge; and in Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, Princeton, NJ (which has his nephew Othniel Charles Marsh’s papers).

In Baltimore, where GP spent 22 of his most formative commercial years, 1815-37, we read his papers at the PIB, and the papers and journals of PIB trustee John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) who, at GP's request for a cultural center for Baltimore, originally conceived of the idea of the PIB. In Baltimore we also read relevant material in the Johns Hopkins Univ. Library and the Enoch Pratt Free Library, whose founders, as mentioned, GP directly influenced.

Ben Welsh, under whom Betty worked in the Berea College Labor Office (he was a part time travel agent), got us low cost round trip transatlantic ship passage to London. To store our old car, the Ruckdeshells, in whose Baltimore house we roomed (secured through the Johns Hopkins Univ. student housing), phoned a friend with an empty garage who helped us raise our car on blocks for four months' storage.

(Authors' Research in England)

In London, Sept.-Dec. 1954, we registered as student researchers at the Univ. of London and rented an inexpensive "bed-sitter" through student housing. An early breakfast of bread, peanut butter, fruit, and milk (with the outside window ledge our "fridge") preceded morning research in libraries. Lunch at a nearby bustling pub was followed by afternoon library research until closing time. An occasional restaurant supper treat preceded nighttime arranging of notes. We managed some Sunday and holiday visits to cultural sights, theaters, and events. On cold London winter nights of 1954 we huddled close to a space heater, feeding it shilling coins to keep it going.

At London's British Museum Manuscript Division we read PM William E. Gladstone's (1809-98) cabinet minutes, Nov. 10, 1869, showing the decision, first suggested by Queen Victoria, to use Britain's newest and largest warship, HMS Monarch, to return GP's remains from England for burial in the U.S.
(Transatlantic Funeral Honors Intended to Soften U.S.-British Near-War Angers Over U.S. Civil War Incidents)

HMS Monarch was chosen as funeral ship partly because of the public attention it would draw and partly to honor his philanthropy in the U.S. and especially in London. His 1862 $2.5 million gift for low-cost apartments for London's working poor warmed English hearts and brought him many British honors. There was also a political motive for the choice of HMS Monarch, as there was for unusual British (and later U.S.) pomp and ceremony surrounding his unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral.

GP died at the height of unresolved U.S.-British angers over serious incidents during the U.S. Civil War. One lingering anger was over the Sept. 1861 Trent Affair. Four Confederate agents seeking arms and aid in England and France slipped through a Union blockade of Charleston, S.C., sailed to Havana, Cuba, and then boarded the British mail ship Trent for England when a Union warship captain stopped, boarded, removed, and jailed the Confederates.

Britain furiously protested this illegal seizure and sent troops to Canada should war erupt between the U.S. and Britain. Calmer heads prevailed and Pres. Lincoln had the Confederates released. Also, Confederate agents secretly bought British-built ships, armed them as Confederate raiders, like the CSS Alabama, which wrecked or sank Union ships and cost U.S. lives and vast treasure. The U.S. offered proof that Britain knowingly turned a blind eye to the sale of these raiders and angrily sought indemnity.

Choice of HMS Monarch was thus a political decision to soften near-war British-U.S. angers over these and other Civil War incidents. Politically astute PM Gladstone at the Nov. 9, 1869, Lord Mayor's Day banquet, five days after GP's death, said publicly: "With the country of Mr. Peabody we [will] not quarrel." Three years later (1872), a Geneva international court required Britain to pay the U.S. $15.5 million indemnity to settle the Alabama Claims controversy.

At London's Guildhall Record Office we read (1)-Journals of the Court of Common Council recording the Freedom of the City of London honor given to GP, July 10, 1862. We also read (2)-Minutes of the Committee for Erecting a Statue to Mr. George Peabody, 1866-1870, documenting contributors to GP's seated statue in Threadneedle St., near London's Royal Exchange, created by U.S.-born Rome-based sculptor William Wetmore Story (1815-95). GP's statue was unveiled in a public ceremony by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII, 1841-1910), July 23, 1869, three months before GP's death.

A replica of GP's seated statue in London was erected in front of the PIB, April 7, 1890, by Baltimorean Robert Garrett (1847-96). GP's seated statue in London, 1869, was the first of four statues of Americans in London, the others being of Abraham Lincoln, 1920; George Washington, 1921; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1948.

At London's Public Record Office we read (1)-"Alien Entry Lists" recording every time GP entered a British port, (2)-"Foreign Affairs Papers," and (3)-"Admiralty Papers," the last two documenting Britain's part in GP's unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral.

In London's Westminster Abbey we read (1)-"Recollections by Dean [Arthur P.] Stanley of Funerals in Westminster Abbey 1865-1881." Visiting in Naples, Italy, when he read of GP's death in London on Nov. 4, 1869, Dean Stanley (1815-81), knowing of GP's March 12, 1862, gift for housing London's working poor, telegraphed associates to offer Westminster Abbey for a funeral service for this generous American.

We read the Westminster Abbey's (2)-"Funeral Fee Book 1811-1899," which listed GP's Abbey funeral costs. We stood at the permanent GP marker on the stone floor of Westminster Abbey near Britain's unknown soldier where GP's remains rested for 30 days (Nov. 12-Dec. 11, 1869). That marker was refurbished for the 200th GP birthday ceremony at Westminster Abbey on Feb. 18, 1995.

To honor his housing gift to London's working poor, GP was made an honorary member of two ancient guilds, the Clothmakers' Co., July 2, 1862, and the Fishmongers' Co., April 19, 1866, whose records we read in the respective guild libraries.

At the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, we read letters from Queen Victoria and her advisors to, from, and about GP. The Queen offered him a knighthood. He declined, since this honor (at that time) required him to become a British subject. Unwilling to give up his U.S. citizenship he accepted instead her letters of thanks and an enameled miniature portrait she commissioned to be made especially for him. That portrait, along with his other honors, are on display at the Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass.

We read the three brass signs on the front door of Morgan, Grenfell & Co., Ltd., 23 Great Winchester St., London, which read from bottom to top: George Peabody & Co., 1838-64; J.S. Morgan & Co., 1864-1909); and Morgan Grenfell & Co. (1909-90). The firm's current descendant, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990), has records of George Peabody & Co. and some business papers of GP, J.S. Morgan, and J.P. Morgan, Sr. We secured a copy of GP's death certificate from London's General Register Office, Somerset House.

At the British Library at Colindale, turning pages of heavy dusty bound newspaper volumes we found many contemporary articles about GP, especially of his elaborate U.S.-British friendship dinners in or near London from 1850 onward, most often on July 4th, U.S. Independence Day.

We wrote letters to British newspaper editors asking readers for any privately held GP letters or memorabilia. Two families had "George Peabody" embossed glass plates made by a souvenir glassware manufacturer in Sunderland, England, in the aftermath of his widely publicized death and 96-day transatlantic funeral. We donated GP glassware given us to U.S. Peabody institutions.

When first proposed for membership in exclusive British clubs, GP was denied membership (blackballed). This occurred during repudiation of interest on U.S. state bonds sold to British investors, many held by widowed families. Americans were then especially disdained. When it became known that GP had publicly protested repudiation, and particularly after his gift for housing London's working poor, he was unanimously elected to London's best clubs.

We read of GP's admission to the most prestigious of these clubs, The Athenaeum, whose librarian Eileen Stiff (d. 1985) befriended us. We met her housemate, writer Margaret Leland Goldsmith (1895-1970), whose invaluable editorial help is mentioned later. We also visited a Peabody apartment complex where some 34,500 low income Londoners lived.

(U.S. Return: Asked to Give GPCFT's Founders Day Address, Feb. 18, 1955)

We returned to the U.S., loaded our old car in Baltimore with voluminous notes and microfilm, and headed for Nashville. There, David E. Short, president of the Nashville business school where Betty had taught English in exchange for a rent-free apartment, generously let us live there again (paying whatever rent we could afford). His generosity plus part time jobs enabled us, on evenings, weekends, and holidays, to organize our voluminous GP materials. This task was suddenly hastened when GPCFT Pres. Henry H. Hill (1894-1987) asked Franklin to give the GPCFT's Founders Day Address on Feb. 18, 1955, the first such address by a student.

Pressed to succinctly tell the GP story, Franklin's speech to a Peabody College audience highlighted GP's career, U.S.-British friendship dinners, philanthropic influence, death in London, and unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral. This speech opportunity would not have happened if Dean Felix Robb had not first suggested the GP research; or if GPCFT Prof. Clifton Hall as major professor had not been widely respected on the Peabody and Vanderbilt campuses (such backing was needed by an unknown untried doctoral researcher); or if Franklin had not kept his five doctoral committee members abreast of findings by regular research progress reports. Doors of opportunity swung on such hinges.

Franklin's speech highlighted GP’s last illness, death, and funeral: A sick 74-year-old GP joined business friend W.W. Corcoran at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., a popular mineral springs health spa (July 23-Aug. 30, 1869). Present by chance were southern and northern political, educational and former Civil War leaders, including Robert E. Lee (1807-70), then president of Washington College, Lexington Va., renamed Washington and Lee Univ. in 1871.

Though confined to his cabin, GP yet heard some of the gayety of younger visitors who flocked to a Peabody Ball spontaneously held in his honor. On GP's few well days he and Lee walked, talked, and dined together, often applauded by visitors. GP and Lee were photographed together and with others, including visiting Civil War generals from South and North.

Informal talks that last summer of GP’s life were on southern public education needs. These set a precedent for later more formal Conferences on Education in the South, 1898-1902, which in turn led to vast foundation aid which helped raise southern public schools and higher education toward national levels.

Distressed by the Civil War, GP in Nov. 1861 had helped two of Pres. Abraham Lincoln's emissaries contact leaders in London to keep Britain neutral: Ohio's Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (mentioned earlier as GP's intermediary with Lord Shaftesbury) and N.Y. state journalist and political leader Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), both GP's long-time friends.

After GP's death, when he was attacked as a Confederate sympathizer, Thurlow Weed publicly vindicated GP's Union loyalty (which McIlvaine also affirmed). Some northern extremists, determined to punish the South, faulted GP for founding the PIB in Md. (1857) and the PEF (1867), both seen as aiding the South. Weed reported that the $2 million that went into the PEF GP originally intended (in 1859) to give to the NYC poor. But NYC public schools had prospered and the Civil War had intervened. Moved by Civil War devastation, GP determined to aid public education in the South.

Congress and Pres. U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson recognized GP's 1867 PEF as a national gift. Forty seven years later, GPCFT Pres. Bruce R. Payne's (1874-1937) Feb. 18, 1916 Founders Day speech thus described GP's PEF founding letter, Feb. 7, 1867, to ten of his 16 trustees gathered at Willard's Hotel, Washington, D.C., which Franklin quoted:

"There stand several governors of states both North and South; senators of the United States; Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral Farragut. [Chief trustee Robert C.] Winthrop is called to take the chair. Mr. Peabody rises to read his deed of gift. They kneel in a circle of prayer, the Puritan of New England, the pioneer of the West, the financier of the metropolis, and the defeated veteran of the Confederacy. [On] bended knee they dedicate this great gift. They consecrate themselves to its wise expenditure. In that act, not quite two years after Appomattox, is the first guarantee of a reunited country."

GP gave Lee's college Va. bonds ultimately worth $60,000 for a mathematics professorship, left for Salem, Mass., made his funeral plans, recorded his last will in NYC, and arrived in London gravely ill. Through aides, Queen Victoria invited GP to recuperate at Windsor Castle. But too late he died Nov. 4, 1869, at the 80 Eaton Square (London) home of business associate Sir Curtis Lampson (1806-85).

Knowing that GP's will required burial in Mass., Lampson telegraphed GP's nephew George Peabody Russell, who left for England to accompany GP's body home. Letters poured in to London newspapers asking for public honors for GP. The Queen's advisor, Sir Arthur Helps, informed her: "There are many persons who wish to pay public respect to the memory of that good man."

When PM Gladstone, at Queen Victoria’s suggestion, offered HMS Monarch as funeral ship to transport GP's remains to the U.S., Pres. U.S. Grant and U.S. Navy officials, not to be outdone, ordered the USS Plymouth from Marseilles, France, to act as escort vessel. Boston and NYC officials, believing that their cities would be the receiving port, were chagrined when Portland, Maine, was chosen because of its deeper harbor. The U.S. Navy placed Adm. David G. Farragut in charge of a flotilla of U.S. receiving vessels in Portland harbor. GP's funeral took on unprecedented proportions.

U.S. London Legation Secty. Benjamin Moran's private journal entries reflected the consternation at mounting funeral plans. He wrote on Nov. 6, 1869: "Peabody haunts the Legation from all parts of the world like a ghost." Again on Dec. 6, 1869: "Old Peabody has given us much trouble," and, "Will that old man ever be buried?"

Benjamin Moran, critical of GP in his private journal through the years, witnessed GP's Nov. 12, 1869, Westminster Abbey funeral service and was wondrously touched. Franklin quoted Moran's rare eloquence: "I reflected on the marvelous career of the man, his early life, his penurious habits, his vast fortune, his magnificent charity; and the honor then being paid to his memory by the Queen of England in the place of sepulchre of twenty English kings. An anthem was sung and the service end[ed]--George Peabody having received burial in Westminster Abbey, an honor coveted by nobles and not always granted kings."

The Dec. 12, 1869, transfer of the coffin from London's Westminster Abbey to Portsmouth, England, harbor took place in pouring rain and a blowing storm. British Marines formed an honor guard. Scarlet-robed Portsmouth council members under black umbrellas mingled oddly with lines, spars, and beams of assembled ships. Guns were fired. Bugles sounded.

U.S. Minister to Britain John Lothrop Motley (1814-77) said to the Monarch's Capt. John E. Commerell (1829-1901): "Into your hands I deliver Mr. Peabody's remains." The Monarch at Spithead Harbor, Portsmouth, awaited the end of the gale then blowing for the long voyage home.

British honors evoked some dissent in the U.S. One Union extremist said that returning "Peabody's remains on a British ship of war [is an] insult. Peabody was a secessionist." The charge, often made, was as often denied. In 1866 GP told a Baltimore audience: "My sympathies were with the Union. Three-fourths of my property was invested in United States Government and State securities. I saw no hope except in Union victory. But I could not turn my back on Southern friends." A few radical anti-southern Congressional extremists, erroneously believing GP to have favored the Confederacy, argued against a U.S. Navy reception for his remains at Portland. They were outvoted. Both houses of Congress finally approved unanimously.

HMS Monarch and the USS Plymouth were met in Portland harbor, Jan. 25, 1870, by Adm. Farragut and a flotilla of U.S. ships. At Queen Victoria's request and as a final measure of British respect, GP's remains lay in state on the Monarch for two days. Thousands of visitors who flocked to Portland went by small boats to view his coffin aboard the Monarch. On Jan. 29, 1870, a cold New England winter's day, Monarch seamen carried the coffin ashore. Drums sounded a muted roll. The band played the somber Death March.

Hushed crowds filed by his coffin lying in state in Portland's City Hall where, on Feb. 1, 1870, The Messiah was sung, Mozart's Requiem was played. In the bitter cold, thousands watched black plumed horses pull the hearse through Portland streets to the railway station. Many others watched en route the funeral train bound for GP's hometown.

His remains lay in state for viewing in the Peabody library, Peabody Institute, Peabody, Mass., where on display were Queen Victoria's enameled miniature portrait made especially for him, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and resolutions of praise for the PEF, scrolls of the Freedom of the City of London, scrolls of honorary memberships in the Fishmongers' and Clothworkers' Companies, and other honors.

Special trains from Boston brought into Peabody, Mass., visiting dignitaries for his last funeral service and eulogy. In the Congregational Church, filled to capacity, all eyes were on Queen Victoria's son Prince Arthur (Duke of Connaught, 1850-1942) and his entourage, captains of the Monarch and the Plymouth, Massachusetts and Maine governors, Harvard Univ. Pres. Charles W. Eliot, mayors of six nearby cities, and trustees of GP's institutes.

Eulogist Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94), GP's philanthropic advisor, said in part: "What a career this has been whose final scene lies before us! The trusts he established, the institutes he founded, the buildings he raised stand before all eyes. He planned these for many years. When I expressed amazement at his purpose, he said to me, 'Why Mr. Winthrop, this is no new idea for me. From the earliest of my manhood, I have contemplated some such disposition of my property; and I have prayed my heavenly Father day by day, that I might be enabled, before I died, to show my gratitude for the blessings which He has bestowed upon me by doing some great good for my fellow-men.'"

GP's underlined words above are carved on the Westminster Abbey floor marker where his remains had rested for 30 days (Nov. 12-Dec. 11, 1869). He was buried in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870, near where he played as a boy and where he built the family tomb. The 96-day funeral was over. Two nations had given his funeral somber grandeur rare for a non-political citizen.

(GP as Founder of Modern Philanthropy)

Franklin Parker's dissertation, "George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy," documented these PEF firsts: The PEF was the first U.S. foundation to require the stimulating effect of matching local grants for schools it aided or founded; the first to require state legislation to perpetuate state financial support of its aided schools; the first multimillion dollar foundation recognized as national rather than local; and the first to provide operational flexibility as conditions changed.

The PEF was the first U.S. foundation to elect trustees from professional and financial circles; the first deliberately to use public relations to foster public acceptance and good will; the first whose executives were former university officials (Barnas Sears of Brown Univ; J.L.M. Curry of Howard College, Ala.); the first to allow its trustees to disband after its job was done and distribute its assets as they saw fit (when dissolved in 1914, PEF assets endowed GPCFT, Nashville, next to Vanderbilt Univ.; funded education departments of 14 southern universities and colleges; and gave its residue to the Slater Fund for Negro colleges).

(Historians on the PEF's influence):

(1)-Charles William Dabney: [The Aug. 1869 GP-Lee meeting] inspired the Four Conferences on Education in the South from which emerged the Southern Education Board and [John D. Rockefeller's] General Education Board.

(2)-Abraham Flexner: There was the closest cooperation among, and interlocking officers and trustees of, the PEF, the Southern Education Board, the General Education Board, the Samuel F. Slater Fund, the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation, and the Rosenwald Fund.

(3)-Paul H. Buck: [the PEF was]: a fruitful experiment in harmony and understanding between the sections.
(4)-Thomas D. Clark: [the PEF] worked as an education leaven.

(5)-Harvey Wish: no kindness touched the hearts of the Southerners quite so much as Peabody's educational bequest.

(6)-Jesse Brundage Sears: [the PEF was] the first successful precedent-setting educational foundation.

(7)-Daniel Coit Gilman: all subsequent foundations adopted the principles Peabody formulated.

Besides these firsts, in their 47-years existence, PEF executives and trustees pioneered the heartbeat of American educational philanthropy—using private wealth as a lever to tackle key educational and socio-economic problems, the results if good serving as models for other agencies and governments to emulate.

GP's intent and money made this influence possible. In appreciation and to attest to his influence, southern communities have given his name to a score of streets, avenues, elementary and secondary schools, university education buildings, hotels, and one ecological park. GP built better than he knew.

With Franklin's speech given and nicely illustrated in a 1956 pamphlet (below), with the GP dissertation accepted (first item below), graduation followed in Aug. 1956. We went to teaching posts at the Univ. of Texas, Austin (1957-64); Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman (1964-68); W.Va. Univ. (1968-86), and (after retirement), Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff (1986-89), and Western Carolina Univ., Cullowhee (1989-94).

(George Peabody, a Biography, 1971, rev. 1995)

In May 1970, GPCFT Public Relations Director John E. Windrow (1899-1984) brought together prominent New England Peabodys for a Nashville dinner conference at which Franklin spoke. The new Vanderbilt Univ. Press director, in attendance, asked to see a revised GP manuscript. This welcome request threw us into a frenzy of revision. Welcome help came from London Athenaeum Club librarian Eileen Stiff's friend, Margaret Leland Goldsmith, a professional writer. She and Eileen had befriended us through the years. Margaret's editorial suggestions helped turn the dissertation into a readable 233 page book.

Fourteen years after completing the GP dissertation, Franklin Parker's George Peabody, a Biography (Nashville: Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 1971), was published. Twenty-four years later, for GP's 200th birthday, Feb. 18, 1795-1995, a George Peabody, a Biography, 1995 revision with 12 illustrations was published. In 1994, also for GP's 200th birthday, our 22 previously published GP articles were reprinted in a special bicentennial issue, "The Legacy of George Peabody," Peabody Journal of Education, Fall 1994, 210 pp.

End of Part 2. Continued with Part 3 of 4 Parts.